Project Resources: Appointment or Selection?

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  Organizational Project Management   Resource Management   Strategy  

We’ve all seen the situation. A project manager approaches a resource owner to secure resources for a new initiative, and at least one of two different dynamics (and probably both) is in place. The project manager tries to get the resource they “want” either based on experience from previous projects or because they are the most experienced and/or skilled person available.

On the other hand, the resource owner is looking to assign someone who best suits their needs—giving the PM the best possible person (even if it’s overkill) if they are a major stakeholder in the project’s success, or minimizing the impact on their other work if the project is perceived as an annoyance.

Regardless of individual motivations, this is not the kind of approach that is conducive to optimal project team performance, and it raises the question of how project teams should be built and resources assigned.

Projects don’t exist in isolation—all initiatives need teams that offer them a strong chance to succeed. At the same time, resources are constrained and functional areas have more than just projects to deliver. Of course there is also the need to consider the preferences of individual employees—who may or may not want to be involved in projects in general, or may prefer working on some initiatives more than others.

With these many …

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